Xanthe
St Helier, April 2019
Strolling through the woods on an April morning, Xanthe breathes in the sweetness of the new foliage and the earthy smell of the forest floor. Overhead, birds are warbling, and when she looks up, a flash of scarlet catches her eye. She stops, leans against the trunk of an oak tree, and watches robins flitting among the branches; she thinks about the assertive gargling of magpies, and the mocking laughter of kookaburras at home.
At the base of the tree, emerald clumps of moss are so vivid they almost seem alive, but in the patch of dappled grass past the oaks, the bluebells have wilted.
No wonder. April is drawing to a close, and she is shocked to realise that her holiday is almost over. She slides down to the soft ground and runs her hands over the spongy moss, contemplating the speed of time. It seems only a moment ago that she arrived, and time seemed to stretch ahead like an empty page waiting to be filled. But since that first day, time has gathered momentum, and the page has almost filled up. She wonders if perhaps this indicates a yet-to-be-discovered rule of physics, that time is able to stretch and accelerate.
She had expected that by now she would have resolved her dilemma and formed a plan for the future. But she hasn’t resolved anything. Has hardly thought about it, really, having become too involved in the lives of strangers who lived here long ago.
What was that irritating feel-good quote that she had seen on a friend’s Facebook page, about life happening while we are making other plans? But she hasn’t moved on or made any plans. She’s still stuck in the quagmire of her indecision.
Daniel has added to her uncertainty about the future. He ticks all the boxes, some she hadn’t even thought of. Unlike her last boyfriend, who prided himself on being a sexual athlete, Daniel doesn’t seem to need to prove anything. He has been focussed on giving her pleasure, with a tenderness that makes her feel she is dissolving into him. But sex is only part of the attraction. Every day she can hardly wait to see him, desperate to feel his strong arms enfolding her, and to share her thoughts and feelings.
It dawns on her that she can’t bear to think of life without him. Snap out of it, she scolds herself. That’s a romantic myth. You shouldn’t need another person to feel complete. But the feeling persists. He is her other half, the part that has always been missing, and life without him seems only a half-life. A meal without salt, pepper or sugar, that you consumed merely to stay alive, not for any sensual pleasure. With him she has achieved that longed-for balance between control and surrender.
With a sigh she checks her Apple watch, pulls herself up from the ground, brushes the twigs and leaves from her jeans, and heads back to her car. She will sort it all out another time, but now she is going to meet Bob Blampied.
Something Hugh wrote in his journal has raised a question, and she hopes he’ll be able to answer it.
Bob had suggested meeting on the Esplanade in front of the Grand Hotel, and Xanthe supposes they’ll go inside and chat over a drink, but when he arrives, he proposes a stroll along the waterfront instead.
He’s not wearing his peaked cap today and the sea breeze ruffles his hair, which is as fine and white as talc. Despite his age, he has a long, loping gait and she needs to walk fast to keep up with him.
Seagulls are wheeling and screeching overhead, and as she breathes in the salty smell of the sea, she marvels that only half an hour ago she was strolling in woodland and driving past rolling farmland, and now she is already on the coast. Within its miniature dimensions, this island seems to contain every landscape.
‘Les Jardins de la Mer. Sea gardens,’ Bob translates as they skirt an area of parkland by the shore. Pointing to a bronze statue in a fountain, he makes a grimace.
‘See that? Two naked women swimming with a dolphin. Whatever next? I don’t have anything against naked women or dolphins, you understand, but this shows the modern obsession with tearing down old buildings with character and replacing them with sterile spaces, pretentious artworks, and box-like structures.’ As he speaks, he waves a disparaging arm in the direction of the buildings on the other side of the Esplanade. ‘Thank goodness they’ve left the Grand alone.’
In between giving a commentary on what he considers deplorable contemporary architecture, Bob stops to chat to several passers-by eager to hear his views about a scandal involving a member of the local government.
Xanthe is impatient to move on but Bob, who is clearly something of a local institution, is in no hurry, and neither are the people who are listening avidly to his words.
As soon as they move on, she asks, ‘What happened to that woman who looked after Sasha and was deported to Germany?’ She speaks quickly before another acquaintance can monopolise his attention.
Bob stops walking. He turns towards her with a questioning look, and she realises that he is confused by the sudden change of subject.
‘I’m sorry,’ she begins but he is shaking his head.
‘Not to worry. I’m with you now. Just had to adjust my old brain one hundred and eighty degrees to keep up with you. Let’s sit over there in the park and I’ll tell you what happened.’
They sit on a bench facing the fountain that he has just described as pretentious, and while she watches three children shrieking as they chase each other around the pool, he stares into the distance, as if retreating into the past.
‘Mrs Carter was deported to a concentration camp north of Berlin. Ravensbrück, it was called,’ he says after a while. ‘Even after all this time, it still makes my blood boil. They accused her of being a spy. Said she listened to her illegal wireless and passed on information to other people.’
‘Was that true?’
Bob shrugs. ‘I doubt it. She would have known better than to let on that she had kept her wireless, but she had such an open, generous disposition that she probably didn’t realise how vicious people could be.’
‘I don’t know anything about Ravensbrück,’ Xanthe says.
‘You don’t hear much about it,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know anything about it at the time, but I’ve since found out that it was a camp exclusively for female prisoners. Polish women, French women, Jewish women. Women from all over occupied Europe were interned there. They were supposed to be political prisoners, but I doubt if many of them were.’
‘Was it as bad as the other camps we read about?’
‘I don’t know how you compare one hellhole with another. I think any camp in that frightful Nazi gulag would have been your worst nightmare. I read that conditions in Ravensbrück were terrible. Cruel female guards, gas chambers, and a sadistic camp doctor who experimented on the prisoners. After cutting them, he used to insert dirt or glass into the open wounds to see if they survived the infection.’
Xanthe shudders. ‘A doctor did that?’
Bob studies her pale face. ‘Yes, a doctor. And he wasn’t the only one. There was a notorious one in Auschwitz. You have a lot to learn about human nature, my dear girl.’
She recalls what Daniel has told her about lawyers being complicit in the Nazi regime, but the thought that doctors, who had taken the Hippocratic oath, who were meant to heal the sick, had deliberately infected healthy people horrifies her. As a medico, she feels personally affronted by it.
With an effort, she returns to her question. ‘So what happened to Mrs Carter in there?’
‘Apparently she was very popular with the other inmates. She managed to keep everyone’s spirits up and did whatever she could to help others.’
Xanthe is listening intently, eager to hear more, but at this point Bob hesitates, and she senses that he wants to delay telling her the rest of the story.
‘Did she tell you about it when she came back after the war?’ she prompts.
He sighs. ‘Unfortunately she never returned. She died a few months before the war ended.’
‘That’s terrible. What did she die of?’
Bob swallows. ‘They gassed her.’
Xanthe’s hand covers her mouth. ‘Oh no! Poor Mrs Carter. And all she did was look after an escaped slave labourer! But if she died in Ravensbrück, how did you know what happened to her?’
‘A woman from Guernsey told me. She was deported to that camp at the same time as Mrs Carter, but she survived. Years later, I found out more about Mrs Carter when the German government released an archive of Nazi files they kept in Arolsen, and I requested her file. The amazing thing is that the bastards – excuse my French – kept meticulous records of their victims.’ He is speaking faster now, warming to his theme. ‘What I can’t understand, is how morons these days can deny the Holocaust when the Germans themselves, even the Commandant of Auschwitz, left such detailed records of their crimes.’
They leave the park and continue strolling along the Esplanade in silence, reluctant to trivialise their discussion with small talk.
When they reach the Grand Hotel, Bob stops walking.
‘Now, young lady, to dispel the dark shadow you’ve cast with your questions, shall we raise our spirits, so to speak, with a drink in the hotel bar?’
Ensconced in burgundy velvet armchairs by the large window facing the bay, they order their drinks from a waiter whose condescending manner irritates Xanthe. As soon as he walks away, Bob leans towards Xanthe and whispers with a wicked smile, ‘The nobleman’s valet is always a bigger snob than his master.’
When the waiter returns with a tumbler of Tobermory whisky for Bob and a fruit mocktail for her, it occurs to her that not so long ago, she would have jumped at the chance to down a Stoli or two, but she no longer feels the need to anaesthetise her feelings with alcohol.
Sipping his whisky, Bob studies her. ‘You’ve been here for a few weeks now. Tell me, what do you think of our island?’
Her mocktail is decorated with pieces of pineapple and mango, and as she removes them carefully from the foiledged skewers, she wonders how to sum up the impact that Jersey has had on her.
‘It’s a lot more varied and complex than I expected,’ she says slowly. ‘But I don’t actually know what I expected. I didn’t come with any preconceived ideas, and everything I’ve seen so far has amazed me.’
As an afterthought, she adds, ‘I’m very grateful for the time you’ve spent with me, Bob. Thanks to you, I’ve seen such fascinating places and learned so much about Jersey’s history.’
He drains his whisky and beams. ‘It’s been a real pleasure,’ he says, inclining his head in a mock bow. ‘At my age, every day is a precious gift. I can’t afford to waste a single minute so I choose my activities – and my companions – very carefully.’
Then he adds, ‘I’ve noticed that you find our past especially interesting. Am I right?’
She nods. ‘I don’t know why that is. I’ve never been interested in history before but ever since I got here, I’ve been fascinated by Jersey’s past, especially during the Occupation.’
‘If you’ll forgive an old fogey spouting old-fashioned ideas, I often think the heart knows more than the mind realises.’
But Xanthe does know why she has become so fascinated with Jersey’s past, and she is struggling with an urge to confide in Bob about Hugh’s journal. She has become very fond of the old man and feels guilty keeping this secret from him. Besides, it would be an enormous relief to discuss the journal with him, but she holds back. Once taken, this step would be irrevocable, and she senses that until she has finished reading it, she can’t risk disclosing its existence given the increasingly personal nature of the entries.
This was not merely a record of a doctor’s life during the Occupation, a doctor Bob had known very well. It was an intimate account of events that involved not only Hugh Jackson, but people whose lives were interwoven with his.
As soon as she returns home, she picks up the journal and resumes reading. After a short time, she puts it down because her tears have blurred the words. Wiping her eyes, she looks straight ahead but she doesn’t see anything in front of her. She sees Milly’s tear-stained face pressed against her attic window as she waves a lace-edged handkerchief at a passing truck. She sees the pale face of the young man who looks up for a last sight of his sweetheart and tries to look brave as he is being driven to his execution. She feels that Milly is infusing all her love into that forlorn wave to give him the strength to face his fate.
It’s as if Xanthe is part of that heartbreaking scene herself, and her tears keep flowing. Too upset to continue reading, she is pacing around the house, wondering what to do with herself until it’s time to meet Daniel, when her phone rings.
‘I’ve finished for the day,’ Daniel says. ‘I heard they have an interesting animal park near St Helier. Do you feel like going?’
As they drive north towards the Jersey zoo, Daniel reaches for her hand. ‘I’m sorry I suggested going to the zoo,’ he murmurs. ‘What I really wanted was to go to bed and feel you against me.’
She smiles and squeezes his hand. ‘We can do that later,’ she says. Being with him has dissipated the sadness she felt earlier. ‘So we’re off to the zoo like little kids!’ she says happily.
‘Not just any zoo,’ he says, and points to a sign. ‘Durrell Wildlife Conservation.’
Xanthe cranes her neck for a better view and exclaims, ‘Durrell! That must be Gerald Durrell, the naturalist. I read his book when I was in high school and loved it. My Family and Other Animals.’
At the ticket office, a large woman in a caftan printed with huge flowers explains that the aim of the zoo is to breed and protect endangered species from all over the world. She looks over their shoulders as they sign the visitors’ book.
‘Oh, you’ve come all the way from Australia! Have you heard of Jambo?’
They shake their heads, and she continues. ‘Years ago a little boy fell into the gorilla pit, and a huge silverback stood guard over him until the keeper rescued him. Your papers must have reported it, they even wrote about it in America.’ She sounds almost offended that they don’t know anything about the zoo’s gorilla hero.
The zoo is spacious and attractively landscaped with pools, stands of trees and flowering plants, and after wandering around, they sit in front of the gorilla enclosure in honour of Jambo.
‘Daniel, how long do you think you’ll stay here?’ she asks.
‘At the zoo you mean?’ She is about to reply when she realises he is teasing her.
‘Not quite sure,’ he says. ‘There are still some important documents I have to go through.’ His dark blue eyes are searching her face. ‘Why do you ask?’
She doesn’t know how to reply. Should she come straight out with it and tell him that she can’t bear the thought of going back home without him? Or play it cool and give some socially acceptable excuse that won’t scare him off?
In the end, she does neither. ‘I’m going to stay for Liberation Day and leave after that. The trouble is, I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get back, and not knowing is very stressful.’
In front of them, a small girl with her hair in bunches that stick out at right angles from her head is squealing with delight at the antics of the gorillas as she jumps against the railing to get a better view.
‘They say you have to know which bridges to burn and which ones to cross,’ Daniel observes.
‘I’ve never thought about it like that,’ she says. ‘Can you do both?’
‘What, you mean get halfway across your bridge and then set it on fire?’ He’s teasing again, but she is exploring a possibility she has never considered before.
The little girl’s mother, who has obviously heard about the child who fell into the gorilla pit, rushes up to the railing and scoops up her daughter. ‘Do you want to fall in there with the gorillas?’ she shouts while the child kicks and flails her arms in protest.
‘I suppose it depends on your flexibility and your vocation,’ he says, serious now. ‘I was disgusted with my grandfather’s collusion during the war, and bored with the work in my legal firm, so I was ready to burn that bridge, but then I found a way of reconciling law with research, so I suppose you could say I did both.’
He waves his arm to indicate the zoo. ‘Like Gerald Durrell. He was passionate about animals, so the logical step would have been to become a vet. But he wanted to use his love of animals to do something significant, so he created this to try and rescue them.’
Xanthe thinks back to her conversation with Bob Blampied about the Nazi doctors, and her horror at their perversion of her profession. Being a doctor and healing people was in her DNA.
She takes Daniel’s hand. ‘Good thing we came here today. You and Gerald Durrell have given me something to think about.’
They sit in silence watching the gorillas until Xanthe says, ‘What do you think your research will achieve?’
Surprised by her question, Daniel pauses. ‘It may not actually achieve anything, if you mean something concrete. I read somewhere that failure in any endeavour is inevitable but giving up is unforgiveable. So I’m prepared to fail, but I won’t give up. If my research clarifies misconceptions and creates a more realistic picture of what happened here, then it will have achieved something worthwhile.’
‘What misconceptions do you mean?
‘The conviction that the Jersey authorities did whatever they could to protect their Jews, when in fact their collusion and cooperation made it easy for the Nazis to deport their Jewish neighbours. Their collusion was typical of the behaviour that made the Holocaust possible. What happened to the Jews here was a microcosm of what happened to them in other occupied countries. So I’d like to scuttle the myth that the British were somehow superior to other countries, because after what happened here I’m convinced that had Britain been occupied, the Jews would have suffered the same treatment there as they did in the rest of Europe.’
‘That’s depressing, isn’t it?’
‘I think it shows that without strong moral leadership no nation is immune to a divisive racist agenda. The only places where it hasn’t happened is where a leader with unshakeable moral values has been in charge. That was the case in Denmark, in Bulgaria, and to a smaller but equally impressive extent, in a corner of France.’
‘But how will you know if your thesis has the desired effect? Changing attitudes takes a long time and it’s pretty hard to quantify. For instance, can you see your relative Edward de Courcy changing his attitude?’
He shrugs. ‘All I can do is put it out there and hope that the facts make people reassess what really happened.’
As soon as he pulls up outside her house, they jump out of the car, and in her haste to get inside Xanthe fumbles with the keys. Already on the stairs leading to the bedroom, he is unbuttoning his shirt and she pulls off her T-shirt. They fall onto the bed, and he is kissing her lips and stroking her hair when suddenly she sits up.
‘That bridge between Sydney and Melbourne. Are we going to burn it or cross it?’
‘What do you think?’ he asks, and, laughing, he pulls her down onto the bed again.